Internet bot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Internet bots, also known as web robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human editor alone. The largest use of bots is in web spidering, in which an automated script fetches, analyses and files information from web servers at many times the speed of a human. Each server has a file called robots.txt containing rules for the spidering of that server that the bot is supposed to obey.

In addition to their uses outlined above, bots may also be implemented where a response speed faster than that of humans is required (eg gaming bots and auction-site robots) or less commonly in situations where the emulation of human activity is required, for example chat bots.

1 IM and IRC
2 Creation Sites
3 Commercial purposes
4 Malicious purposes
5 External links

[edit] IM and IRC

Some bots communicate with other users of Internet-based services, via instant messaging (IM), Internet Relay Chat (IRC), or another web interface. These chatterbots may allow people to ask questions in plain English and then formulate a proper response. These bots can often handle many tasks, including reporting weather, zip-code information, sports scores, converting currency or other units, etc. Others are used for entertainment, such as SmarterChild on AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger and Jabberwacky on Yahoo! Messenger.

An additional role of IRC bots may be to lurk in the background of a conversation channel, commenting on certain phrases uttered by the participants (based on pattern matching). This is sometimes used as a help service for new users, or for censorship of profanity.

AOL Instant Messenger has now introduced a feature that allows you to make a screen name into a bot. This new feature removes the rate limit on the screen name, however it is now limited in the amount of instant messages that can be sent and received.

[edit] Creation Sites

Some information in this section is not attributed to sources and may not be reliable.
Please check for inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

There are many sites that offer a variety of features. RunABot has been a high contender until a new service launched two years ago called Lots-A-Bots. Lots-A-Bots offers expanded free services that allow you to send e-mails, automatically transmit instant messages, send delayed bot replies, and have the ability to save bot replies without a limit. The creators have come up with a new code known as LAB Code, which is based in Artificial Intelligence Markup Language.

[edit] Commercial purposes

There has been a great deal of controversy about the use of bots in an automated trading function. Auction website eBay has been to court in an attempt to suppress a third-party company from using bots to traverse their site looking for bargains; this approach backfired on eBay and attracted the attention of further bots. The United Kingdom-based bet exchange Betfair saw such a large amount of traffic coming from bots they launched a WebService API aimed at bot programmers through which Betfair can actively manage bot interactions.

[edit] Malicious purposes

Another, more malicious use of bots is the coordination and operation of an automated attack on networked computers, such as a denial-of-service attack. (see botnet) Internet bots can also be used to commit click fraud and more recently have seen usage around MMORPG games as computer game bots. A spambot is an internet bot that attempts to spam large amounts of content on the Internet, usually adding advertising links.

There are malicious bots (and botnets) of the following types:

spambots that harvest email addresses from contact forms or guestbook pages;
downloader programs that suck bandwidth by downloading entire web sites;
web site scrapers that grab the content of web sites and re-use it without permission on automatically generated doorway pages;
programs that are out on the web looking for copyright infringements so they can sue people or companies;
viruses & worms;
data mining programs and cyber-surveillance bots used to collect information on a web site or company;
hackers;
DDoS attacks;
Botnets / zombie computers; etc.

Bots are also used to buy up good seats for concerts, particularly by ticket brokers who resell the tickets. Bots are employed against entertainment event-ticketing and fan club commerce sites, like TicketMaster.com and MusicToday.com. The bots are used by ticket brokers to unfairly obtain the best seats for themselves while depriving the general public from also having a chance to obtain the good seats. The bot runs through the purchase process and obtains better seats by pulling as many seats back as it can.
Bots are often used in Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games to farm for resources that would otherwise take significant time or effort to obtain; this is a concern to most online in-game economies.